Discovering the Meaning of Life

I have heard people who have lost everything through flood, fire or other disaster say that, in a way, it was freeing to them. Without anything material - no house, no clothes except what they had on, no furniture, maybe not even a car - their minds were free to come back to square one. They came back to what really lay at the center of it all, what was fundamentally at the seat of their values - family, friends, good health, each other.

I have to remind myself of that once in awhile. Like everyone else, I lose sight of what lies at the base of my soul sometimes. I don't get out into nature enough. My desire to write is so strong that I bind myself to the computer almost unwittingly. I don't feel the sun and breeze on my face for days on end sometimes. If I am away from nature for a long time, when I return I have at times been so moved by the contrast that I have cried.

I am concerned. The first thing we humans did, thousands of years ago, was to put leather on our feet. Our feet no longer felt the soil - cool, damp or warm and dry. We were no longer in flesh-contact, foot to soil, with the face of the earth. We had moved one step away. More steps away from the Earth would follow.

At times I don't even realize how hungry I am for contact with the earth, for contact with nature, only to find when I return to nature that I am half-starved. When I come out of my everyday life into the natural world, it is only then that my spirit is removed from the soul-numbing effects of the over stimulation of modern society.

Soul-numbing? Some will say the opposite, that modern society stimulates the mind, nurtures our intellectual curiosity, develops our sense of culture, and gives us things like music, dance, theater, and books. Some of these things are born of spirit, like the arts, but most are born of the mind and intellect. Wherever you find modern man, you will find all of these things. In and of themselves, none of these things are inherently bad.

So then what is it about modern society that is so soul-numbing? What is it that shuts us off from experiencing or even wanting to experience that certain something we find in nature?

When I sit at my computer, nearly everything is made in the shape of a square - the screen, the keyboard, even the room and the house I am sitting in. But in nature, squares are not the norm. Circles are. Trees, stones, the sun, moon... all of these are circles. Then there are the flowing lines of the flower, the leaves, even the branches in the trees... the flowing lines of the shapes of animals... Not a square anywhere.

How can a mere shape affect our sensibilities? I don't know, but I suspect it does. Maybe someone smarter than me will come along and figure out how a mostly man-made shape has numbed us to the natural world.

When I stare at the computer screen, I forget how it feels to be outside. I lose track of time. Hours go by without me remembering where I come from. Computer screen, TV, chalkboard, book - it's all the same.

Some will say, well, I read books outside. Or I write on my computer outdoors. Yes, at times i do also, but mostly I do not. The habit of being inside grows stronger the more I do it.

So maybe that's what people mean when they say that, oddly, they feel freed in a way by the loss of their house, computer, TV, and all those square things they owned. Without all of that, we are forced to come face to face with what is left. Nothing. Yet everything. Our family. Our spouse and children. Our friends. Our health. Our mind. Our spirit. That's what is left when you take away "everything" in a flood, fire, or other disaster.

It shouldn't take a major catastrophe to point this out to us. Ideally, we should be just as aware of it all day, every day, as if we had lost all our material goods. After all, in the end, those things don't matter. We can't take them with us.

In this way, Jesus was very wise. He went with nothing and insisted his disciples follow with nothing, no bread, no purse, nothing. He knew. He knew what going without anything would do to them mentally. Ultimately they would have to rely on God, on the universe, on the kindness of people for everything they needed to get by. To live. To even thrive.

He said that it was harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven. Not that it can't be done. It's just harder, and now I think I understand that more. It's not only harder to get to heaven, it's harder to find peace here on earth, heaven on earth, when you have thousands of "things" you have to watch after, take care of, dispose of, repair, buy, and sell.

Strip all of those "things" away, as has happened to people who have lost their homes, and you are left face to face with "nothing". You are left with the core essence of what life is all about.;.. the essence of life, the core of your being, the topsoil and rain... you are back to square one, just like a newborn infant.

Maybe that's what Jesus meant. He said we had to be born again. Be like children to enter heaven. Children take no mind of where they are going to get their next meal or how they are going to be able to pay their bills. They don't worry about how they are going to get clothes or how they are going to be able to even afford them. Why? Their Mom and Dad take care of them, or some counterpart to those roles.

In our lives, our Mom is the Earth. Our Dad, God. Yet we worry. It doesn't matter, anyway, in the long run. Somehow we will all manage to live until we die. Then none of all of these things we worry about will matter anyway.

Worry takes away our focus. We get distracted, and distraction is one of the biggest tools of the dark side there is. The dark side loves to distract us from our greater purposes in life... distract us from loving our wives or husbands... distract us from enjoying our children... distract us from loving our enemies... distract us from praying to or worshipping our God. It's a very effective tool, but half of the battle in anything is being aware of what is going on. You take the steam out of a problem once you are aware of what is really happening, because then you know how to fix it.

What's left is actually doing something about it. That's where I get stuck sometimes. But I find that if I keep bringing my focus back to being aware of what is really taking place and how I may be suffering from it, then I will do something about it. Especially if I see the reward. Especially if I keep my focus on the benefits of walking away from those distractions and walking towards fulfillment of what I've really wanted all along.

So I try, every day, every minute to do just that. Yoda said, "There is no try. There is just do." So maybe I should stop trying and just give in. Not give up - give in. There's a big difference.

Have you ever been in a big strong current and tried to swim out of it? I have. And I was just wasting energy. When I finally let go and just gave in to the current, the Class V rapids took me exactly where I had been told not to go - over a big rock and down into a hole where waters swirled backwards and could hold you under. Seriously. This really happened.

I had been told the "hole" would hold me down because there were so many bubbles there, and you can't swim in bubbles. So when I hit those bubbles that I thought might drown me, I swam straight up with all my might. And guess what? I popped right out of there. Right after, there was a rope in front of me. I grabbed it and was pulled to shore.

So maybe we have to not worry, stay focused, and let go. It's quick and easy to say that, but there is a lot behind those few words. So I review the thoughts behind those few words in my mind once in awhile, like I am doing now. I look at the depth behind, the reasons to just not worry and to remember what is important in life. I watch out for distractions and keep my focus straight. And I give in and let life take me where it will... where God wills it for me.